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Skaneateles Festival conducts national search for artistic director

David Ying, Elinor Freer.JPG

David Ying and Elinor have been co-artistic directors of Skaneateles Festival since 2005. The couple have resigned and will end their 10-year relationship with the chamber music festival when the season ends in August.
(Courtesy photo)

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Skaneateles Festival is in search of an artistic director. After 10 years programming the summer chamber music festival in Skaneateles, co-artistic directors Elinor Freer and David Ying have resigned. The four-week season in August will be their last. The festival board has formed an eight-member search committee to field candidates for the post. The national search is being conducted through word-of-mouth, referrals and a job posting on the website of Chamber Music America and the Skaneateles Festival, said Susan Mark, executive director.

The Freer and Ying resignation followed Ying's appointment as artistic director of the Bowdoin International Musical Festival in Brunswick, Maine, in December. David Ying and his brother Phillip have been named the fest's artistic directors. The brothers, sister Janet and Ayano Ninomiya are string players who perform as the Ying Quartet. The ensemble has performed at the festival in the past. Elinor Freer, a pianist, and her husband, cellist David Ying, are on the faculty of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

"We're just kind of looking for someone to come in and pick up where they left off," said Mark, referring to Freer and Ying. "It's been an amazing 10 years and they've gotten us up to the next level and we want to have someone just continue."

Since making the job opening public, the committee has received 15 applications. None of the early candidates are local. Mark said the committee expects to finish accepting applications by mid-March and begin interviews. The festival hopes to have a new director hired by August for the transition in leadership. The $26,000 position entails planning the season and lining up musicians, being in residency in Skaneateles in August and available throughout the year for board meetings. "The summer season is their primary focus and job," said Mark.

Freer and Ying will close out the 35th anniversary season of the festival. They are the festival's fourth artistic directors. Cellist Lindsay Groves, also one of the founders, was the first artistic director, from 1980 to 1990. Bob Weirich followed from 1991 to 1999 and Diane Walsh from 2000 to 2004.

The festival began as a two-week season of chamber music before expanding to three weeks in 1981 and 1982. Since 1983, the summer festival has featured a four-week schedule of concerts, Wednesdays through Saturdays, at different venues in the village of Skaneateles.

Skaneateles Festival operates with a budget of $350,000. Its attendance has increased from several hundred ticket buyers in the early years to about 7,000 now, said Mark.